Dr. De Mars blog on having achieved success in business, sports and academics without ever actually having grown up. Also includes random thoughts on judo, parenting,mixed martial arts, winning & whatever I feel like rambling on about today.

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Captain Obvious visits the West Coast Judo Training Center

But first ... a word from our sponsor ...======= Drum Roll which I did not put it out of consideration for readers who have low bandwidth =====

For all of you who have asked, here is the information on practices for this weekend and the rest of November....

Hello Everyone,

Here is the schedule for this coming weekend. On Saturday, November 1st, we will be training from 9:30am to 2:00pm at the following location:

Goltz Judo Club1700 Danbury RoadClaremont, CA 91711

On Sunday, November 2nd, we will be doing conditioning at 10:00am at the following location:

Sand Dune Park33rd & BellManhattan Beach, CA 90266.

For November 8th and 9th some of us will be in Seattle competing while others will be competing in Michigan. There will be no practice on this weekend. We will resume our training on November 15 at our regular Location (i.e. 123 S. First St. La Puente, CA).Practices November 15, 16, 22, 23 are as always, 10-11:30 and 1-4 on Saturdays and 10-1 on Sundays.

Please remember $10 a day for practice, except for this weekend when apparently $10 covers training for both days because Yazmin said so. I hope to see you all on both Saturday and Sunday.

Yazmin BottWCTC Manager------------------- NOTES FROM CAPTAIN OBVIOUS-----The training at Sand Dune Park in Manhattan Beach is on a beach with a giant sand dune (hence the name). The photos I saw looked really cool so you should get down there.--------------------------------Adults are not children - Whenever I fight teenagers, especially younger teenagers, I am somewhat amused by the things they do, especially in matwork. They will do things like try to crank on your jaw so it hurts and you move your head, allowing them to choke you, grind their knuckles in your back and so on. I am sure some coach taught them to do that and it worked on other kids who were 13 years old. When they get to the senior level, the people who are still competing are not going to flinch when those little tricks are tried. I will give Ronda credit since I stole this line from her:

"Anything that counts on the other person being uncomfortable to work is not going to be successful at the international level. People are just tougher than that. I fought three matches in Germany with my elbow dislocated and won two of them. Do you think I am going to give up because you rub your knuckles along my jaw?"

------------------------------------Now matter how good your excuse is for missing practice, it doesn't stop the person who is training from pulling ahead of you. Even if your mom had cancer (which would be terribly sad), when you come back from missing six months of practice, those people who have been training every day will have improved and you won't.

So, you are welcome to tell me why you missed practice if it is something good (hey, you won the state science fair, amazing!) or bad (you had to have your dog put to sleep, that totally sucks). Regardless of the reason or what I think of it, people who practice more will get better than you.------------------------------------Carrot Juice Tastes like Carrots: After practice at Sawtelle, we almost always stop at 7-11. Last week, Julia noticed the carrot juice and asked who would drink something that gross. I saw it for sale at lunch today and I thought it couldn't taste like juice from carrots, because who would drink that. So, I bought a bottle. It was gross and disgusting. It tasted exactly like carrot juice. At least you can't accuse them of false advertising. I took two sips and poured it down the sink. When I told Julia about it on the way home from practice tonight, she said,

-----------------------------I am in the right job and judo coach isn't it. Today, someone called my office and the conversation went like this:

"I need a reference on nested logit models that gives the exact commands in Stata and the library doesn't have one and I can't find it on-line.""I just happen to have a book on my desk with a chapter on nested logit models.""I thought you would."

Later, I was writing a web page where I said,

"... for more detailed explanations, one would need to read a book specifically on categorical data analysis. My two favorite books on categorical data analysis are ..."

It occurred to me as I was walking back from class:

Who just happens to have a book lying on their desk with a chapter on nested logit models, in Stata, no less, and

Who the heck has even one "favorite" book on categorical data analysis, much less two!

Also, in the next two weeks I am going to not one, but two, conferences on statistical software, taking a class on tagsets, another class on statistical graphics and I am very excited about it and looking forward to all of it.

Sometimes I get annoyed when people act as if I don't know very much judo, but very seldom and not for very long. Coaching the Olympic team has never been my goal in life. Like a number of coaches in America, I think I have a fair bit to offer, but unlike a lot of coaches, after a day's practice, I am perfectly happy to go back the next day and explain to graduate students why stepwise logistic regression isn't necessarily the best idea. Some might argue that is lack of focus, others might say it is a good balance. Me, I would just call it Thursday.

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One world championships, a million dollars in contracts, four degrees, four children - and I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up. Author: Winning on the Ground - available from Amazon & Black Belt and other book places.